7/21/09: eBay Priest

Everyone loves eBay. Even people who don't use the internet or have an eBay account. Everyone with a feedback rating of over a hundred has a friend who fits this criteria, it's impossible not to, a Rule of the Universe, and said friend has no doubt recruited you to sell a thing or two for them over the years. Last year, my eBay-illiterate friend asked me to peddle a guitar for him, and I agreed, happy to. Besides his incentive of a commission, it bolstered my ego, made me feel like a priest playing go-between with him and God. Or something.

Anyway.

I sold the guitar, being the twelve-year eBay veteran that I am, and on the July morning in question, it came time for me to meet with my one-man flock so that we may engage in communion, aka me exchanging a check, less expenses and my cut, for the sold guitar. We were set to meet at 11:30 in the morning, but as I scrambled out of the house, only narrowly on time, I realized I hadn't double-checked the figures, so I begrudgingly stomped back inside and booted my computer. I feverishly totted the figures, and when I was done, Windows Calculator proclaimed the outstanding balance at $1,124.00, which was somehow disparate to my earlier figure by a good fifty bucks. Good thing I'd checked.

So.

I shuffled back to my truck, made-out check in hand, and when I key the ignition, what does the clock on the dashboard read? 11:24. I'd been inside, calculating the correct sum, for four minutes.